The case at the center of last night's episode of "The Good Wife," had parallels to one of our area's most infamous recent incidents.
Yep, the Duke lacrosse case.
Even the characters on the show acknowledged as much, in explaining their trepidation in accepting the civil suit. It was a clever way of the writer's noting that they were using the real case as a jumping off point.
This case about a former call girl accusing a wealthy scion of rape didn't involve race, and its real purpose was to get Alicia Florrick (Juliana Margulies) to confront her husband's sexual indiscretions.
Alicia had never listened to the uncut version of her husband's sex tape. Which makes sense. Who wants to hear their husband's passionate murmurings to a hooker?
But the show seemed to suggest that she couldn't move forward without a full accounting. Indeed, in a prison visit with Peter (Chris Noth) she tells him as much. He asks when she will forgive him, when she'll stop thinking he's slept with everyone. She answers that she needs to know exactly what she's forgiving him for.
It's an interesting point, particularly in light of the recent revelations about John Edwards. As I cringed, I hoped that Elizabeth Edwards already knew that stuff. But realistically how could John have opened his mouth and revealed that he once told the other woman that after Elizabeth's death, they would wed on a rooftop with the Dave Matthews Band playing? (I'm sure she already knows that baby is his.)
Had she mostly forgiven John only to be sent back to square one with these revelations? What about Eliot Spitzer's wife? Did she want to know about the woman, why he sought out a prostitute, what he did with her?
Alicia ponders these things as she investigates the case because, I think, as awful as the details are, they also give her a window into this man she doesn't recognize, that maybe she feels like she may have never known.
On another note, we learn that maybe the case against Peter, the non-sex stuff, may be trumped up. Peter's nemesis makes good on a threat to Alicia, delivering photos (or having someone deliver them) that are worse than what was released before. Her kids get the pictures and Alicia's tech savvy son discovers they've been Photoshopped.
But does that matter for their family? Does one wrong against Peter make him alright?
Assistant Features Editor Adrienne Johnson Martin would like to have her life turned into an animated cartoon. 
